Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Watching the footage of the protesters in Cairo intercut with the impassive, mask-like face of Hosni Mubarak, made me think of this poem

Protesters in Cairo have demonstarted the 'ephemeral sense of tyranny' (Suhaib Salem)

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said — “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half-sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive (stamped on these lifeless things)
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

Watching the footage of the protesters in Cairo intercut with the impassive,
mask-like face of Hosni Mubarak, made me think of this poem, first published
in 1818. Ozymandias is another name for the pharaoh Rameses the Great, and
it is